An interview with Henry Olonga

Former Zimbabwean cricket legend Henry Olonga recently visited Liverpool to speak at the Slavery Remembrance Day Festival taking place at the excellent Merseyside Maritime Museum. I was lucky enough to have a long chat with Olonga who revealed himself as a hugely polite, knowlegable and principled man still full of regret and anger about what has happened to his beloved Zimbabwe. An edited version of this interview appeared in the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Daily Post but I've included the full length version here.

In a sporting world seemingly more concerned with money and fame, talking to an athlete who not only has a political conscience but also the will and conviction to risk his life for his beliefs is a rarity indeed. To meet one as humble, modest and inspiring as Henry Olonga only increases the impression you’ve met a pretty special person.

In 2003 Zimbabwean cricketer Henry Olonga made a decision that was to change both his life and career in ways that he is still finds difficult to comprehend. Prompted by his captain Andy Flower’s disgust at the torture of opposition MP Job Sikhala, the two internationals decided to make a stand against the Zimbabwean government at that year’s World Cup by donning black armbands and releasing an incredible statement ‘mourning the death of democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe’.

“We were warned, “says Olonga, remembering that fateful day. “People did sit down and explain the gravity of what we were doing but I still had no idea what was going to happen.”
What happened was that Olonga was immediately dropped from the team and expelled by his home club. Then things got worse.

“It was not until after the event and when my father received a message telling him to get me out of Zimbabwe that I even considered the fact that I might have to leave the country or that my life might even be at risk,” he says.

Zimbabwe’s notorious leader Robert Mugabe was far from pleased with the cricketers’ actions and within days Olonga became an exile charged with treason, travelling first to South Africa and then to England where seven years later he remains in limbo, married to his Australian wife Tara but still deeming it unsafe to travel home.

It’s hard not to contrast Olonga’s fortunes with those of Flower, who after retiring from international cricket continued to play first class cricket with Essex and now successfully coaches the England team. Olonga who has reportedly not always got on with his former captain agrees his treatment has been harsh.

“You’d have to ask Andy if he had similar threats to me. He’s never told me but what you’ve got to understand is that Andy is a legend in Zimbabwe whereas I was just an average player really. I think most people would agree though that I’ve borne the brunt of the outcry.”

Throughout his problems Olonga has always relied on his strong religious faith to provide answers and guidance and he now regularly speaks to Christian groups about his beliefs. I ask him if his actions against Mugabe’s regime were prompted by his religion or a sense of political responsibility and receive a typically eloquent reply.

“For me it is impossible to separate the two. My faith gave me the conscience to make the decision to do what I did. My faith made me feel the political situation needed to be challenged and my faith gave me the moral values to make those judgements.”

It’s a passionate validation of his actions but it’s impossible not to wonder how Olonga feels about his life being defined by his single moment of protest. He readily admits that he was no more than an average international cricketer (he took 68 test wickets) and that much of his fame revolves around the black armband affair.

“As far as it defining my life, you’re probably right and I’m very honest about that,” he muses. “I was never going to be famous or well known for my bowling. Maybe once or twice in my career I hit the heights but not many so I admit that the incident may be why I’m known now and the reason I get media work and give lectures.
“Bear in mind though we had no idea how the world was going to respond or if some people thought we were degrading the World Cup. Yes we knew what we were doing was pretty heavy but we had no idea which way it was going or that I wouldn’t play cricket again.”

Mention of cricket brings us back to the sad story of the Zimbabwean team which for the last five years has lost its Test status and much of the positive ground it gained during Olonga’s playing career. Olonga himself was a supporter of the boycott of tours to his home country and a vocal opponent against Zimbabwe’s cricketing authorities.

“I made a decision a while ago that I wasn’t going to talk about this – I was going to sit back and not do any interviews so not many people have heard my views for a while. For the most part I was opposed to Zimbabwe becoming integrated again because the situation was still so bad.

Inflation was through the roof and the same problems remained but now with the power sharing agreement (between Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai) a degree of stability has returned to the country and there are good people in charge of health and education.”

Olonga is clearly positive about his country’s future and hopes the positivity can extend to the nations cricketers.
“I think the time is right for integration. Would we win every game? No, certainly not but players like Brendan Taylor are only 24 and have played over a hundred One Day Internationals so the experience is there. They need to be at the vanguard of the new Zimbabwe.”

Olonga is in a unique position to cast judgement on England’s current fine form and puts much of it down to his old team mate and captain.

“I don’t know what the winning formula is but I suspect Andy Flower has installed a certain belief. Andy is a tough guy and he won’t wrap his players in cotton wool like past coaches have. If you’re not performing Andy will tell you straight. 90% of success as a coach in any sport is winning respect and he’s certainly done that.

‘“It’s like at the Oscars – Andy is the director but there’re lots of people behind the scenes. The physios and the coaches are like the gaffers or the actors. They all help but Andy is in charge and deserves credit.”

Olonga is full of praise for the current England players. Graham Swann is “a revelation” if “he can stay out of jail” while Strauss is “unrecognisable from the player dropped three years ago. Captaincy obviously does him good.”

As for Olonga’s own career he is proud of certain performances mentioning the six wickets he took against England as a highlight and although he enjoys still playing for the Lashings International XI this year he has struggled with injury.

“The spirit is willing but the body is weak!” he laughs. “I got carried away at the start of the season and tweaked my achilles but it’s just fun for me now. I’ve no interest in coaching.”

Instead Olonga is breaking out into all sorts of other areas. He has already recorded an album of his own music and as his impressive website displays he also enjoys painting and photography.

“I’m at the mercy of whether people enjoy the things I do. If they like my music or my art that’s the direction I will go in. Hopefully my new book will do well otherwise I might have to play cricket again!”

Cricket’s loss could well be literature’s gain.

Blood, Sweat and Treason – Henry Olonga, My Story is available now in all good bookshops.

The C Word

There is a word in the English language that retains a power to shock that no other word can. As run-of-the-mill insults have been dulled by overuse, this one particular word is as powerful, and as shocking, as ever.

That word, of course, is 'cheat' - at least as far as the cricket pitch is concerned. To openly suggest that someone is a cheat on a cricket pitch is anathema, and is a good as fighting talk. It is, to reference another old cliche, simply not cricket.

In most sports it's possible to cheat, but in lower-league cricket it's childishly simple - and it can be used to turn cricket matches into an absolute train wreck. Such games rarely feature specialist umpires, and are umpired by members of whichever team is batting in either innings.

As such, the umpires are often required to adjudicate on whether to give their own team members out in cases of run outs, catches and LBWs. Inevitably the benefit of the doubt, residing with the batsman at the best of times, is weighted even more heavily in favour of the batting team.

The danger of cricket like this is when a team uses this potential advantage to totally ruin a game, giving their own batsmen not out again and again to the point where a line has been crossed and that team is simply cheating.

I have never seen a game develop in this manner before, but we had received warning that a certain team in the league was planning to cheat in a return fixture.

Following a fractious game, where the said team were on the receiving end of an absolutely hiding - something I always suspected to have been the real issue all along - I got talking to another member of their club at another game.

He warned me that this team were planning to 'give [us] nothing' in the return fixture. In essence, they were planning to cheat by not giving any decisions in our favour.

I decided that this was probably a result of this team being sore from such a massive bumming, and wrote it off as a bit of post-match anger. So we turned up at the away leg of this fixture yesterday willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

We batted first, having been put into bat, scored 200-odd in a little over 45 overs and declared. I gave two decisions myself, a caught behind and an LBW. When we bowled we realised we'd been had.

The opposition did not give one decision out of ten that were extremely good shouts, and probably another five that could easily have been given. A clear nick through to the keeper and a catch off the face of the bat off my bowling were the two worst 'not out' decisions I've ever seen.

In the latter instance, the batsman prodded forward and hit the ball straight into the waiting hands of silly mid off. That it could not be out was not only absurd, it was literally inconceivable, according to various laws of physics.

For two other LBW shouts, the batsman could have walked. Another was off my bowling. "Why was that not out?" I asked in astonishment.

"I just thought it wasn't out," came the reply, looking down. He couldn't think of a reason it wasn't out, so he didn't even try to give one.

During a drinks break, I heard one of the opposition discussing the situation, with the words: "We can't give these [Sefton Park] 25 points." In the end they blocked out for a draw, managing a pathetic 100-8 off over 40 overs, chasing 210.

I've never called any opposition team cheats before, but I'd have no hesitation in doing so in this instance. Neither would anyone else who played in it.

In retrospect, we should have walked off. When you're playing cricket and the cards are stacked that highly against you, what's the point?

Indeed, what's the point in playing any sport when you know one team is going to cheat? It's not even a case of the opposition trying to cheat the referee or umpire. The opposition IS the referee or umpire - and they're cheating.

Pre-meditated cheating too. The umpires who gave these decisions had either been told not to give any decisions, or they had decided, unilaterally, that they were going to cheat. Given our advance warning, it's obvious which one.

What can be done? The only sanction is to return the favour the next time we play this team, but what's the point of that? The game may as well be called off.

And who would that benefit? Not us, as we delivered a lesson in cricket on both occasions, only denied a second crushing win by their cheating.

So, we can only go into the next game as if it's any other game and hope for the best. No doubt the team in question will feel they have won some sort of victory by cheating us out of win, but the not only diminished themselves, they diminished cricket and everything it should stand for in the process.

On the way out they charged us £55 for teas - sandwiches and crisps - a full £15 more than teas at Sefton, which is a sit-down affair with all manner of cooked foods. Again, we knew we were being mugged, but could do little about it.

The previous week, this team had played our 4th team and been heard plotting to take all the food from the buffet so there would be none remaining for the Sefton team. One of the WAGs, helping out with preparing the teas, had to ask them to put some of the food back.

Cheating is obviously a way of life at this club.

Swann subterranean cat screwdriver rescue: Great cricket excuses

Not much to say about this, beyond the obviously-brilliant headline, which comes from Graemme Swann's defence against drink-driving charges.

Swanny says that he was forced into his car to venture to a supermarket in order to fetch tools to lever up the floorboards in his house to rescue his trapped cat.

Whichever way you look at it, that's a hell of a story; made even better by a quote from the police who attended Swann because he was driving a Porsche Cayenne (reason enough in my book) in an area known for burglaries.

Here's the BBC's report of what arresting officer PC Voce saw that fateful night:

"As he approached us, from the manner of driving I thought we had a burglar or a stolen vehicle.

"He was waving the screwdrivers, saying, 'It's not for what you think, the screwdrivers aren't for what you think'.

"He stated the cat was trapped under floorboards and he continually asked us to contact (his wife Sarah) and a call was made to a sergeant to attend the address and make sure the cat was okay.

"He had had the builders in and the cat was trapped under the floorboards but he couldn't find the screwdrivers in the house so he went to Asda."

'Slurred speech'

After arresting the cricketer and escorting him to the police car, Pc Voice said she had to wind down the driver's side window because he smelled so strongly of alcohol.

So there we have it. Bleary-eyed, slurred-of-speech and waving a bag of screwdrivers around, Swann repeatedly asked the police to turn up at his house and ensure his cat was OK. That all sounds perfectly reasonable to us.

The BBC has certainly had some fun over it, with two effort at a funny headline: ''Drink-driving' Swann blames cat' and 'Drink-drive charge Swann in 'cat rescue attempt''. We prefer the latter.

All joking aside, whatever Swann may or may not have done, he seems anything but the stereotype of the spoilt, arrogant, stupid sportsman on frequent display in this day and age.

In his 'cat rescue attempt', he does, however, join the pantheon of cricketers wielding unlikely excuses. I've rounded up a couple, which may be familiar but are nonetheless still amusing:

• Derek Pringle was said to have once damaged his back while writing a letter so badly that he was forced out of Test contention. In fact, the chair he was sitting on at the time collapsed, which is pretty much every bit as funny.

• Chris Lewis was late for a Test against Pakistan in 1996, claiming he had a puncture. Ray Illingworth simply went to inspect his car, which showed no signs of a punctured tyre.

• While apologising for biting a cricket ball in full view of cameras during a T20 match against Australia, Shahid Afridi also claimed that all international teams tamper with cricket balls, implying that to do so was acceptable, and it was only his chosen method of ball-tampering that was beyond the pale.

• Michael Clarke claimed that the Aussies did not win the 2009 Ashes because of a lack of playing facilities. Well, he implied it. And it's always nice to remind ourselves of what happened in that series.

• Mike Atherton claimed that what looked suspiciously like a V sign directed towards Philo Wallace in 1999 was in fact nothing more than an indication of the whereabouts of the dressing room.

• Matthew Maynard forced himself out of a few games on the 1993 Windies tour by picking up a sea urchin.

All good, but none come close to subterranean cat screwdriver rescue.

Reading The Pitch - a Top Ten of Cricket Books (part one)

Of all sport, cricket (with the exception of boxing) seems to attract the most wonderful writing. With its moments of high drama, unfolding plot and an obsession with statistics and detail perhaps it’s no surprise that figures such as Arthur Conan Doyle, A.A. Milne, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett all played and loved the game.

As a result of this rich literary heritage my book shelves seem to be stuffed with tomes relating to cricket (although comparing Dazzler – The Autobiography of Darren Gough with Waiting For Godot is perhaps pushing it a little). Go into any second hand book shop and you’re bound to find either Geoff Boycott’s autobiography or Ian Botham’s latest list of all that is wrong with English cricket (a list that usually begins with ‘administrators’). In between the many bitter, self serving biogs or the cosy, crumpet stained memories of Bradman, Sutcliffe and Swanton you’ll find some genuine gems which made me regard recent article in The Wisden Cricketer on the best 50 cricket books with such interest.

I consider myself pretty well read but was amazed to find that I had read or owned only seven of this illustrious list. Admittedly many of them seemed to be by Neville Cardus and date from the twenties but it still made me think about the books I had read that were missing and the impact some of them had made on me. So here in no particular order are ten cricketing books which I have loved for a variety of differing and sometime strange reasons:

10.

When Freddie Became Jesus
Jarrod Kimber

This strange and incredibly rude book about the 2009 Ashes series is surely the only one on this list to contain the phrase “the pitch was a shitty slow son-of-a-bitch”. Kimber, an Australian, who seemingly can’t believe his luck to be getting paid to watch cricket, swears like a docker with haemorrhoids, throughout this story of the series that never quite lived up to 2005’s legendary contest.

Despite the swearing, or more accurately because of it, Kimber catches in brilliant and vivid detail the frustrations of fan and player alike as they attempt to somehow recapture the wonder that flowed through that glorious summer like cheap lager. Neither team quite manages it but Kimber plays a blinder, putting all thoughts of his impending nuptials to one side as he produces a hilarious book that is worth twenty Stuart Broad autobiographies.

Here’s a few one liners from the book:

On seeing Richie Benaud for the first time in flesh in the media box:

“He was so close to me that I could have turned around and licked his trouser leg. And don’t think that it didn’t cross my mind”

On the difference between the previous 2 Ashes and the 2009 version:

“Where 05 and 06/07 had greatness, 09 had Ravi Bopara and Nathan Hauritz”

On Ian Bell:

“If I were a mad billionaire who hosted parties that people came to just because there was a lot of booze and freaky shit going on, I’d hire Ian Bell, strip him naked, oil him up and make him practice his cover drive for hours on end in a giant birdcage.”

09.

Coming Back To Me
Marcus Trescothick

From the hilarious to the heartbreaking. When Marcus Trescothick returned home from a tour of Pakistan in 2006, his explanation that he was suffering from a stress-related illness confused many cricket fans who refused to consider that depression was just as serious an injury as a broken arm. As Trescothick recently said “If I had cancer, no one would dream of taking the mick, so why should they over this illness?”

Trescothick’s account of his mental health problems is incredibly moving and honest. As someone who has also had a number of similar issues, I found the book incredibly helpful and Trescothick has stated that he gets letters every week from people thanking him for writing it. The passages where he describes his helplessness after his father-in-law suffers a life threatening accident while Trescothick is the other side of the world are beautifully written.

Thankfully the book is equally direct on Trescothick’s cricket career and his insights on England’s transition from the dark days of the noughties to the 2005 Ashes win are interesting and perceptive. It also reminds England cricket fans what a wonderful player we have missed.

08.

Life Worth Living
C.B. Fry

This is a ridiculous book about a ridiculously talented man. It reads more like one of Michael Palin’s ‘Ripping Yarns’ and is almost as funny, although in this case perhaps unintentionally.

A summary of Fry’s life could include the following: He set a world record for the long jump, played football for England, appeared in the 1902 FA Cup Final, scored over 30,000 First Class runs, met Churchill, Hitler and Ghandi, represented India at the League of Nations, stood for Parliament and even turned down the throne of Albania.

Fry’s chapter titles are a delight on their own:

Chapter 7: Motorin’, Huntin’, Fishin’, Shootin’
Chapter 15: India of the Princes
Chapter 18: Adolf Hitler
Chapter 20: Hollywood

Sadly the great Corinthian lets himself down with some ill advised upper class nonsense about Hitler:

“The fact that we have come to look upon the Nazi system as hostile and dangerous to our interests does not prove that the means whereby Germany has reformed herself into such a capacity are not worth our close attention.”

But let’s try and ignore that and revel in passages like this instead, possibly my favourite in any book:

“It is half-past ten: time for the caravan to start from Brown’s Hotel. The Bentley is at the door; Mr Brooks, the chauffeur, is wise-cracking out of the side of his gutta-percha mouth. Aboard are writing pads and binoculars and travelling rugs, a copy of Herodotus, a box of Henry Clay cigars and reserve hampers of hock and chicken sandwiches. A monocle glitters. A silver crest passes, high and haughty, above the cities of the plain. C.B. Fry is off to Lord’s.”

07:

On and Off the Field
Ed Smith

This was one of those books that sneaked up on me and ingrained itself in my memory without me expecting it. The diary of the season is one of cricket literature’s go to books, but apart from the brilliant Simon Hughes, most players turn it into a dull tale of dressing room ‘japes’, moaning about the weather and the contents of the tea at Lords.

Ed Smith’s book was always going to be a bit different: Smith got a double first in History from Cambridge and reviews books for the Telegraph so amusing anecdotes about Gatt’s love of pickle sandwiches were always going to be thin on the ground. Instead what we get from Smith is an incredibly intelligent insight into the mind of the professional county cricketer which is full of gripping descriptions of matches, players and spotting pretty girls in the crowd.

It helps of course that Smith’s 2003 season was amazing. Playing for Kent he has a Bradmanesque July with the following run of scores: 135, 0, 122, 149, 113, 203, 36, 108, 32 and is picked for England.

It’s here that the book really touches greatness with his descriptions of the pressure and nerves of playing for your country and his colorful descriptions of fellow internationals: Flintoff prepares Smith a vodka and tonic after his first England innings, Mark Butcher confesses to reading a Graham Greene novel every week, Nasser Hussein is described as “burning with an anger that often borders on hatred”, while a touching portrait of Smith’s county colleague Andrew Symonds belies his drunkard reputation.

Using the word ‘journey’ smacks of reality show blandness but that’s exactly what ‘On and Off the Field’ is. It’s a brilliant book and one which leaves you full of admiration for Smith, possibly the most intelligent player to put pen to paper since Mike Brealey.

06.

Morning Everyone
Simon Hughes

Hughes’ 1997 book A Lot of Hard Yakka: Triumph and Torment – A County Cricketer’s Life is rightly hailed as a classic but I enjoyed Hughes’ 2005 Ashes cash in just as much. In similar self-deprecating style Hughes describes his misadventures in journalism with an honesty that must have lost him a large number of friends and contacts. The book reaches a climax with Hughes joining the cast of Channel 4’s excellent and much missed cricket coverage as he settles into his role as ‘the analyst’.

He bravely criticises Boycott (“a sharp eye but his attitude and turn of phrase is a little old hat”), is constantly amused but impressed by Mark Nicholas’ hair, idolises Richie Benaud (Benaud describes his daily 6.15am walk as taking “between twenty-nine minutes and fifty-five seconds to thirty minutes and five seconds”) and to his credit even broaches the sticky subject of Dermot Reeve’s burgeoning cocaine habit:

“On the second day, Reeve looked rather the worse for wear, with staring eyes and hair all over the place and his manner veered wildly from confrontational to dopey.”

Things reach a head when Reeve criticises Fred Trueman in front of Boycott and shows Benaud his recently pierced nipple.

If nothing else reading this book has made me all the more determined to write about cricket.

05.

Netherland
Joseph O’Neil

I'm reading this book called Netherland by Joseph O'Neil...it's fascinating. It's a wonderful book.'

Barack Obama

One thing which struck me about The Wisden Cricketer’s list of cricket books was there was no fiction. How could a sport with such literary pedigree not attract some wonderful novelists? Thankfully, Joseph O’Neill, an Irishman like that fellow cricket lover, Beckett, comes to the rescue with his excellent 2008 book Netherland.

On paper it’s an unlikely tale. A dislocated Dutchman, alone in New York after 9/11, turns to his love of cricket to try and make sense of his life. As a result he finds himself entering the murky world of cricket US style – a rough and violent game played on marginal urban parks by various characters from America’s immigrant population. It’s here he finds Chuck Ramkissoon, a West Indian dreamer who longs to bring cricket to the States and in true Field of Dreams style decides to build a stadium.

The novel is beautifully written and Dutchman Han’s lyrical descriptions of the various games he plays in are worthy of C.L.R James:

“I cannot be the first to wonder if what we see, when we see men in white take to a cricket field, is men imagining an environment of justice.”

Given the recent farce of the first Twenty20 game to be played on American soil, a match between Sri Lanka and New Zealand which saw all of 5,000 people turn up, Chuck Ramkissoon’s dream could be a long way off.

Cricket 3D - The View from the Pub

I’ve watched cricket in some beautiful places. From the beer garden of the Bat and Ball Inn in Hambledon, beneath the pink cherry blossom at Maghull and of course the rose garden at Sefton Park. It’s safe to say Yates’ Wine Lodge on Allerton Road won’t be joining this list.

Still this was history in the making and with the extra enticement of the classic burger and a pint for £3.50 offer, I wandered over to the only pub in South Liverpool showing England playing Bangladesh in full 3D.

The initial signs weren’t good. A quick phone call to the pub brought the manager to the phone: “We’re on Sky’s website are we? I better have it on then – to be honest we don’t get much call for the cricket.”

Taking my seat about 3 m from the screen, I was heartened to see two other punters wearing glasses which they had paid a £5 deposit for. Mine had been ‘borrowed’ from a recent screening of ‘Avatar’.

Unsurprisingly, given the time of day and location the pair are students but even after a couple of beers they were unsure of whether this experiment with the third dimension was working.

“It needs a lot of work I think” said Matt Brown, 20. “The close ups work and when the fielders move towards you but the actual bowling which you think would be best, is pretty hopeless.”

He’s right. Like most things in cricket it seems to be a question of angles. Occasionally you’re left very impressed – the slow mo shots from mid off look great but then you realise you can’t see if Tamim Iqbal is out or not when he’s rapped on the leg.

Sky seemingly are using this game as an experiment and it shows. Players come in and out of focus and rather than show replays they keep reverting to wide, panoramic shots featuring Stuart Broad’s gangly frame at fine leg. Admittedly these look good but they are just fluff really. A further criticism comes with the ridiculous realisation that you can’t read the scorecard.

What does work is quite surprising. Hawkeye and the graphic projections of where balls are pitching jump out at you like arrows and the controversial Hawkeye actually gains something, making 3D an interesting future option for decision making.

Overall though, the experience is disappointing. The feeling remains that the lack of close ups and multi player action means cricket lacks the dynamic punch of football or rugby, a fact constantly brought home by many of the ad breaks featuring those sports.

“I think it’s got potential”, says doctor, Ben Thompson, who pops in for a pint after work. “They need to pick some of the angles that work and stick with them.”

A bit like Stuart Broad’s bowling really.

Solstice Cup appreciation

Right, finally, I did a bit of a colour piece on the Solstice Cup on ny new site - Seven Streets - which I expect everyone to visit.

There's also the images I did on the day on this post too - a bit mixed, but I was batting badly and talking shite on the radio at the time.

Solstice Cup images

Sefton Park CC Solstice Cup